


Modern Legends

by roguewrld



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Gen, Loki is a tactical genius, Who takes lessons from Grand Admiral Thrawn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-07
Updated: 2012-07-07
Packaged: 2017-11-09 08:27:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/453410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roguewrld/pseuds/roguewrld
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki learns about humanity through their art.</p><p>Warning: Contains spoilers for major plot points of Battlestar Galactica and Timothy Zhan’s Thrawn novels. Not a crossover.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Modern Legends

When the All Father casts him out, weak and powerless, he probably saw it as a kindness, that the silence that was Loki’s punishment in Asgard is only making him more mad. It is the Avengers who find him, who lock him up in Stark’s tower, while they debate what to do with him. He will not return to Asgard, to the silence. He will make the Hulk kill him first. 

The debate rages for weeks. On the second day, Stark brings in a television and shows him how to use it. Loki knows the images on the screen are works of fiction, like the images he can make dance in the fire, but it provides valuable insight into the Midgardian’s minds. 

He watches the tale of Batman, a man pushed too far. It is apparently a powerful myth in this culture, the story as well-known as any tale in Asgard, but to Loki it is new and full of surprises. When Harvey Dent tells Bruce Wayne, “You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain,” Loki doesn’t understand what he means. It seems too sentimental, for a story so dark, until the lawman becomes a monster. Loki has already failed to die a hero, so he moves on. 

By the fourth week of deliberations, Loki has moved on to serial fiction. He spends a solid week watching what the voice in the ceiling calls the ‘new’ Battlestar Galactica. They are people living under a terrible pressure, and breaking from it. There is a lesson to be learned here, Loki knows, watching Gaius Baltar fall from grace and then drag himself back into a position of relative power. There is a lesson when four members of the New Caprica resistance meet in an empty room, discover they have been Cylons all along and then keep fighting. 

He asks Stark’s ghost for stories where the villain was only doing what he thought had to be done and is presented with two options. The grotesque half breed Scorpius who double played the whole galaxy to save it from the Scarran, no matter the cost. The second was more interesting, a warrior named Thrawn. He is blue, and cunning. Loki feels an affinity even before he discovers why Thrawn is fighting so hard for a dying Empire. “JARVIS, what was this threat from beyond that Thrawn feared?”

“The Star Wars canon refers to them as the Yuuzhan Vong, sir.”

“Did they come?”

“Yes, sir. I can provide you with the all 84 souces-”

Loki waved his hand. “Your world’s governments won’t debate forever. Where they ready, without Thrawn?”

There is a moment of silence and Loki wonders if he is altering his master. Finally, JARVIS answered. “No. The New Republic era of Star Wars is dominated by fractional infighting. The death toll given in the novels numbers in the trillions.”

Loki leans back in his chair, and considers. There is nowhere he can go, nowhere he can hide. When Thanos comes, and he will come, there is a very good chance Loki will die. If surviving the madness of his long fall and then the hospitality of the Chitauri had taught Loki anything, it was that he didn’t want to die. “Will you summon my brother?”

Grand Admiral Thrawn had played the long game, and he had only failed because all villains eventually failed. The only way Loki was going to get out of this mess alive was with one hell of a redemption arc. He strips to the waist before Thor arrives and curls up on the couch with the glass tablet Stark had given him. He reads, and waits. 

When Thor bursts in the door, the knotted masses of scars on Loki’s body silence whatever loud and irritating thing he was about to say. Loki sets the glass down and says, “My brother. I wish to tell you about what happened when I fell, and the things I found in the darkness. I will tell you about Thanos, if you will listen.”

To bare his scars turned out to be unnecessary. To be brothers once more, Thor would have believed any lie. To convince him of the truth was far simpler. To convince the others was harder, but he had always been good at getting what he needed from people. 

When the battle is over and Thanos lies dead at their feet, Loki thinks of Thrawn, and smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> I have slight concerns that this story is so impenetrably geeky it may make no sense to most people. 
> 
> If you're unfamiliar with Grand Admiral Thrawn, the Thrawn Trilogy was the official follow up to the original Star Wars trilogy, written by Timothy Zhan. Thrawn was a blue alien who rose to power in the human-centric Empire and he had the ability to intute things about alien cultures by looking at their art. Naturally, I thought of Loki.


End file.
